Steve Kovach Email & Phone Number

Freeport, Pennsylvania, United States

I enjoy listening to and meeting customers and helping them define their business needs, then translating those needs into the best solution. Then I work with the sales and integration teams while they develop and deploy those solutions.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

In this role, I'm returning to some of my roots in a lead position with greater responsibility. It also affords me an opportunity to share my 15 years of experience with (formerly) Vocollect hardware and software and my knowledge of our many customers around the globe. As a lead, I'm responsible for ensuring our flagship products, distributed to thousands of customers, are shipped with no defects. I also manage testing activities with service contract workers across several time zones ensuring they are able to also deliver software to merge with our own containing a minimum of defects.

Greater Pittsburgh Area

A common joke for researchers and developers in the 90's was "You start coding and I'll go see what they want." As part of the SPS UX Design Studio, I contribute in two significant ways. I conduct usability research through contextual interviews, surveys and usability testing.I conduct research on both the hardware and software, and often, both at once.We design the research materials, conduct the sessions and hone the feedback into understandable and pertinent stories using clear language and easily communicated stories. In this way, we've switched the old joke around and now we obtain feedback at regular intervals, and help the developers and engineers hone the products into something that's successful the first time.

Pittsburgh, Pa

When Honeywell acquired Vocollect, I transitioned into a new role as R&D Engineer. Many of my responsibilities are the same as they were under Vocollect, with a few additions. My position was now under the User Experience research role.My team brainstormed with the mechanical, electrical, radio and prototype engineering teams at all phases of concept, design and execution to collect and advise with real world, customer centric feedback. In order to collect the feedback I frequently traveled to sites around the globe, and spent time with the actual men and women who use or will use our products. I collect information through observation, interviews, surveys and statistical analysis and present it to engineering teams and all levels of management back in the home office.I helped build a "human factors" team at Vocollect before the term was in vogue, and based originally and simply on common sense analysis of the human element with respect to the Vocollect Voice total solution. We collected OVOC data in the early prototyping phases, conducted comfort and usability studies with prototypes and "production intent", and sat on all of our internal cross functional design teams, providing data and "voice of the customer" detail to feed back into hardware and software engineering.I also oversaw field trials for our product enhancements and we have identified and corrected problems and issues before they turned into customer dissatisfaction or a recall. Ask me about it.I also conducted training for new employees, allowing them to visit a live customer facility and observe our products in action, and also coordinated with customers, and partners to also give them a chance to see the value proposition of voice in action.I've worked on all phases of the AccuNurse resident care solution, A700 industrial series, SRX-2, SR-15, 2nd generation SR-20 and SL-14 headsets. I've been involved with introductions and updates to our entire line of accessories as well.

Freeport, Pa

This was a part time but profitable business I started with two friends in early 2007. For the most part my duties included helping to run the legal and bookkeeping end of the company, managing payroll and taxes, but I've also been in many a basement running ductwork, gas and wiring. It's a nice change from my full time job because it's simple, all the work is done in one day, you can feel a great sense of accomplishment and it makes money. There is a great deal of creativity involved as well since every installation is different and sometimes requires creative solutions which must be implemented safely and legally within the framework of codes and government regulations.We are PA licensed and registered (PA038168) and fully insured, specializing in residential systems. Our installers have more than 30 years experience. Our worker credentials and certifications meet and exceed all those required by law. Let us give you a very competitive quote to install, service or repair your heating and cooling system.

Greater Pittsburgh Area

See my writeup regarding Honeywell (above) for details.AccuNurse 2007-2009 and again 2012. R&D, Usability, Accessories and continued improvement.Talkman T2, T2x, A500, A700. R&D, Design of A700, Usability, comfort and enhancements.

Ridc Park, Blawnox Pa And Remote Sites

Managed the Giant Eagle / Vocollect relationship, investigated and resolved issues. Supported the Vocollect Voice interface to the warehouse management and order processing systems. Managed the voice implementation and upgrade teams both remote and onsite coordinating between the corporate office in Pittsburgh and seven distribution centers located in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Various, Pittsburgh, Gloucester England, West Palm Beach Fl

Managed all technical aspects of the implementation at customer sites including Northeast Utilities, British Energy and Florida Power and Light.Resident and onsite daily, I coordinated the activities of local and remote teams to ensure delivered software in a complex system consisting of more than 10,000 modules. At more than nine nuclear sites we implemented smoothly, on time and within budget. Managed a core onsite team which varied in size depending on the needs of the project and the current state of progress, typically between 1-5 people. Regularly liaise with customer technical and management staff to ensure project is running smoothly, and clear roadblocks when things are less smooth.

Freeport, Pa

I developed, marketed and distributed custom software for the analysis of food using a tool called the Chroma Meter. There was a market need for the software as food processing companies doing research used the meter to measure freshness and quality of different food preparations, yet were taking all the measurements manually from the tool, and writing them down in a spreadsheet. My initial software was simple, it could operate the meter using simple scripting, and retain and upload all the collected data using the integrated RS-232 interface.After six customers, and support for several models, I sold the distribution rights and source code (developed using Visual Basic) to one of the customers, and closed out the business to take a promotion and an international assignment with Indus International.

East Butler, Pa

Coordinate activities between teams located in Denver CO, Butler PA and Springfield OR to develop and implement a co-joined order processing and delivery system based on legacy requirements.

Greater Pittsburgh Area

Analyzed and coded COBOL based programs on an IBM mainframe using DB2 and VSAM files to implement systems in Rapid Refund, Account Management and Check Issuance applications.

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Area

Design and code COBOL / Datacom/DB based systems on CICS to implement applications in Administrative Law, Liquor Licensing, and Legal Correspondence.

As Computer Science

Education record